Beyond Design: the Construction and BIM blogtag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-955761842638415472014-10-28T17:01:01+00:00Beyond Design is your one-stop blog for the construction industry, BIM & technology. Stay ahead on the latest industry trends, receive tips & tricks and receive updates on what is happening with Autodesk construction workflows. From preconstruction to field management, Beyond Design has you covered.TypePadInnovation: Diagnose Before You Prescribe!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d01b7c6fbde7b970b2014-10-28T17:01:01+00:002014-10-28T18:08:20+00:00I recently had the pleasure of participating in the AEC Hackathon in Seattle, as well as attending the recent BIMForum in Dallas. At both Autodesk-sponsored events, I was inspired by the sheer amount of creativity and enthusiasm exuded by AEC professionals and software developers, looking to push BIM – and...Dace Campbell

I recently had the pleasure of participating in the AEC Hackathon in Seattle, as well as attending the recent BIMForum in Dallas. At both Autodesk-sponsored events, I was inspired by the sheer amount of creativity and enthusiasm exuded by AEC professionals and software developers, looking to push BIM – and our industry – further ahead into the future with new tools and processes. Some tools drew a fair amount of excitement. In particular, drones and 3-D printing continue to ride a wave of hype, joined by a resurging interest in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, to extend and leverage today's BIM tools and processes. AEC Hackers and BIMForum presenters are definitely having fun, inspiring colleagues, and pushing the envelope!

Yet, despite the exciting advances for our industry, I was also equally frustrated by the way new (or in the case of VR/AR, new again) technologies were positioned, pitched, and presented. All too often, new technologies were touted as game-changing, with barely a nod to the game they purportedly change.

All too often, "innovators," seduced by shiny technology, leap into technical details and features and functionalities without thoughtful exploration or explanation of the context of real-world business problems. Simply put: too much sizzle, not enough steak. AEC professionals, supposed benefactors of innovation, are left wondering, "What's in it for me?" Unfortunately, this is all too common in innovation, and this oversight when developing new technologies casts a pall on valid R&D when observed by the conservative AEC industry. To claim a new technology is a solution, or the solution, without clear analysis of the problem to be solved, relegates these potential "tools" to the mere status of "toys" in the eyes of practitioners who could likely most benefit from them.

Taking a cue from "Solution Selling"® methodology, I offer to the hopeful envelope-pushers and dynamic pitchmen of new technology: To be successful with your innovation, diagnose before you prescribe!

You wouldn't go to a doctor and expect a prescription handed to you for medication before you can sit down with a medical professional and describe what's ailing you! Why would an AEC "innovator" attempt to do that?

Before experimenting with and applying a solution, and long before touting it as a heroic fix, you need to understand the pain faced by real-world AEC professionals. Be specific, and describe who has this pain, and when. Analyze the underlying reasons for the pain, and dig further to find the reasons behind those reasons. Further, study and document the impact of this pain in an organization, across a project team, or between firms: what bad things happen to others because of it?

If possible, try to quantify the pain and its impacts in real monetary value. Ask specific "MOM" questions, like how much, how often, or how many times the pain occurs. Document this estimated pain, because if you arrive at a successful solution, this is what you can use to calculate a return on any investment in your innovation.

Finally, only after having documented the pain, reasons, impact, and value, try to document a vision for new and extended capabilities from real-world professionals expressing their pain. If they were in charge, what would they want done, and how would it address or mitigate their pain?

Then, and only then, are you ready to brainstorm, hack, experiment, research, develop, pitch, demonstrate, differentiate, present, and ride a wave of success that cannot be mistaken for empty, irrelevant hype.

The split between those who grasp this and those who don't was clearly evident at recent BIM events.

As an AEC Hackathon judge, I was sincerely encouraged by teams that developed their "hacks" in the context of real-world problems. Winning teams were handsomely rewarded, with two top prizes going to teams that focused on solving pain faced by contractors in the field. Their solutions weren't crowded with shiny toys, but were attractive to AEC practitioners because they were relevant and useful. By contrast, other teams enamored with new technologies who didn't articulate their solutions in the context of a business case were summarily dismissed. Their ideas may have been fun to explore, and amusing to watch, but so are circus clowns; ultimately and rightfully they took a back seat to serious teams sincerely mitigating pain to move our industry forward.

This dichotomy between the true innovators and the pretenders was also clear at the BIMForum. The most successful presentations weren't the ones who discussed new technologies simply for the sake of being "new" or "better;" the best ones were those that described their work by thoughtfully including discussion of the problems faced by designers, builders, and owners.

There is certainly nothing wrong with experimentation and exploration for its own sake. But when it comes to developing innovative tools and processes for the AEC industry, where real pains exist and real dollars are at stake, successful solutions can't just be pretty to look at; they must prove themselves to be relevant. The solutions prescribed by innovators must follow a careful diagnosis of the problem.

BIM 360 Glue mobile 2.2 Releasedtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d01a73d6e4d0f970d2014-02-03T19:45:16+00:002014-02-03T19:40:02+00:00Version 2.2 of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad is available on the App Store today. For those of you upgrading to this release, the first thing you'll notice is the updated user experience, which has been optimized for iOS 7. New users will benefit from contextual user assistance to help you learn the features as you use them (upgraders can access these too, as I'll explain below). This new release also includes new features that have been requested by numerous users, such as the ability to select object property URLs, and support for transparent objects in BIM 360 Glue views and markups.Paul Walker

Version 2.2 of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad is available on the App Store today. For those of you upgrading to this release, the first thing you'll notice is the updated user experience, which has been optimized for iOS 7. New users will benefit from contextual user assistance to help you learn the features as you use them (upgraders can access these too, as I'll explain below). This new release also includes new features that have been requested by numerous users, such as the ability to select object property URLs, and support for transparent objects in BIM 360 Glue views and markups.

Updated User Experience

The BIM 360 Glue mobile user experience has been updated to better align with other BIM 360 Glue clients, providing coherence for users switching between them. The interface is much cleaner, with a fresh appearance; and in line with iOS 7 it puts increased focus onto the content (your models) and guides you through specific workflows. For example, when adding a markup, the top bar provides clear instructions and the primary action (that which we expect the user to take) – Notify in this instance – is highlighted in blue.

Throughout the app, attention has been paid to grouping 'positive actions', such as Save and Notify, in the top right of the screen, whilst 'negative actions', such as Cancel are positioned in the top left. This type of consistency will assist users, not only in learning current functionality, but also future features that are added.

Other usability enhancements have also been added in this release, such as renaming the Back button (when viewing a specific model) to Models, thereby making it clearer that this will take you out of the current model. These improvements have been identified through a number of usability studies that have been carried out with a number of customers. Thanks to all of you that participated in helping the continuous improvement of the app!

Select Object Property URLs

Many users have provided feedback that they have object properties embedded in their models providing a URL to additional information, such as manufacturer websites or equipment specifications. Up until now, you have been able to read those property URLs, but couldn't do anything with them. With the 2.2 release, that changes! You can now tap your property URLs and be taken to the specific web page.

Support for Transparent Objects in Views and Markups

In the BIM 360 Glue desktop client, you can make objects transparent and save Views and Markups based on those overrides. One example where this is used by BIM 360 Glue customers is with Clashes, where a markup is created whilst viewing a clash result. That markup can then be shared with a project member who will receive a notification. If the user opens that markup notification on their iPad, they will now be taken directly to that markup, and be able to clearly see the clashing objects with all other objects semi-transparent. And by adding another markup in response, communication between project members isn't restricted to those in the office.

Contextual User Assistance

Earlier I talked about how this new version of the app helps to guide the user through workflows, and how this release further helps new users to learn the app through contextual user assistance. This new user assistance – in the form of coach marks – appears the first time a new user opens a model, or launches one of the tools, such as Markups. The coach marks appear as a semi-transparent layer over the model scene, and call out the available functionality. Tap anywhere in the background to dismiss the coach marks, and to bring them back at any time, simply tap the question mark in the lower right of the interface. If you're in the main model scene, then the main coach marks will be displayed; if you have the Models, Views or Markups panel open, or are using the Measure tools, then the respective coach marks will be displayed, providing the essential information required to use that feature.

Tapping on any of the coach mark callouts or icons will access the appropriate section of the online Autodesk BIM 360 help, where you will be presented with additional information. All of the coach marks are built into the app and always available, however you will require an Internet connection to access the additional online help content.

You can download the new release of BIM 360 Glue mobile from the iTunes App Store.

Going Beyond Constructiontag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d01a51109aa57970c2014-01-17T18:29:39+00:002014-02-13T15:48:41+00:00Happy New Year everyone! The past few weeks have been a whirl-wind with the Christmas holidays, New Year's and then getting back into routine and heading to the office. Are you back in the swing of things? My favorite part of the holiday season are all the social gatherings that...Sunny Hira

Happy New Year everyone! The past few weeks have been a whirl-wind with the Christmas holidays, New Year's and then getting back into routine and heading to the office. Are you back in the swing of things? My favorite part of the holiday season are all the social gatherings that take place and meeting new people. The first question people ask me is "where do you work?" which is followed by "what do you do?" People are fascinated when I tell them about Autodesk and the technology disruption that is occurring within the construction space.

Too my surprise, many people weren't familiar with Autodesk yet Autodesk touches some part of (almost) everyone's lives on a day-to-day basis. Yes, Autodesk is known for CAD software. If you follow Beyond Design, you know all about BIM and how it can be leveraged from preconstruction to field management. I want to tell you about the other things that Autodesk software is used for. Let's test your skills and see what you know.

Film

Did you know that the last 18 Academy Award winners for visual effects have used Autodesk Media & Entertainment software? Okay, so you might have guessed that Avatar used Autodesk M&E software since it is pretty obvious. Alfonso Cuarón's movie Gravity, which is nominated for this year's best picture (2014 Oscar nominee list) used Autodesk technology in a non-conventional manner. If you've watched Gravity and know a little about film, you know that some of those shots were near impossible to create with traditional wire work. Actors appear to be weightless and floating!

Bot & Dolly, a SF-based design and engineering studio used industrial robots that moved props, lights, actors and did the camerawork! They used Autodesk Maya to program the robots and this enabled animators (non-robot professionals) to run the robots. How cool is that!

Fun fact: Richard Parker (the photo-real tiger) had 10-million digital hairs and appears in 85% of all tiger shots in the film. Only 24 shots used a real animal!

Automotive

Autodesk software for the manufacturing industry is helping design departments at automotive firms improve their design process. Designers can bring their sketch to life. Imagine, a design goes from inside the designer's head to a computer screen and then it can be printed out in 3D. You have an instant prototype!

At Aston Martin, designing a (car) wheel typically took 6 months since it was sculpted by hand. Today, designers can design a wheel using Autodesk Alias, print a 3D prototype and test the wheel at the race track in two weeks!

Tesla Motors designed their Model S car with Autodesk Alias. The Model S is a "green car" and it can hit 60 mph in 4.2 seconds! The car is also powered by 7,000+ lithium-ion batteries. Since it does not have a standard car engine, it frees up space. With the extra space, you can fit 5 adults with 2 kids or surfboard, a 50-inch tv and mountain bike! By using Alias, the Tesla designers were able to visualize, render, surface and draw. The team uses a combo of rapid prototypes (designed in Alias) and CNC (computer numerical controlled) milled clay models. They model in Alias, mill the data in clay and fine-tune in hand and scan the clay model put it back in Alias for further polishing and then mill it again. They get high quality results in a short periods of time.

Photo Editing

Pixlr Express is my favorite mobile app. It is a free app that has over 600 effects, overlays, and borders to personalize any image. Snap a picture on your cell phone, start the Pixlr app and let the fun begin! What makes Pixlr so fun is stickers will be added for special holidays (i.e. Halloween, Christmas and etc.) and you can decorate your pictures with them. The picture below was snapped with my mobile phone at my desk in the SF office. I used Pixlr Express to change the color, add a frame and a sticker. Can you spot the sticker?

Autodesk Gallery

I've mentioned this before, if you live in the Bay Area, stop by and visit the Autodesk Gallery at One Market. Our gallery has more than 20 unique exhibits on display that highlight innovative work and design from Autodesk customers all around the world.

My favorite exhibits are in the Public Interest section. Take social entrepreneur, Jane Chen and her life saving Embrace Nest, a low cost incubator that helps premature babies. Did you know that four million premature babies die within their first month of life? The Embrace Nest that has three parts: a sleeping bag, heater and a pouch of phase-change material. Once heated, the phase change material stays warm for over 4 hours and keeps the baby's temperature stable. It is saving babies' lives in India.

The Autodesk Gallery is open free to the public every Wednesday & Friday from 10am-5pm. It's a great place to take your kids and show them what it means to design and innovate. Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster came in with her son recently.

If your project team needs a break and a cocktail, take them on a field trip to Autodesk's Design Night. Design Night takes place in the Autodesk Gallery. The monthly event series that explores a different theme each month and it challenges the conventionally narrow definition of design. In the past, Nike's shoe design team and Leo Villareal (the Bay of the Lights creator) were guest speakers.

Design is all around us and innovation comes in different forms. Anything is possible! Did this post inspire you? Now, get back to work!

~Sunny

BIM 360 Glue Collaboration Goes Mobiletag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d019aff72f603970d2013-09-17T16:56:19+01:002013-09-17T16:41:53+01:00A new version of the BIM 360 Glue iPad app, which enables BIM 360 Glue users to access BIM projects and collaborate with team members, is available now. This new version provides the ability to create new markups whether online or offline and respond to markups created by other BIM 360 project members.Paul Walker

Today sees the launch of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad, version 2.0 – and with it, another milestone moment for the solution is met as mobile users are enabled to collaborate with their BIM 360 Glue project team members. This new version provides the ability to create new markups whether online or offline and respond to markups created by other BIM 360 project members. In addition, BIM 360 view and markup notifications are now delivered via the iOS Notification Center, so that you receive alerts even when not using the app.

From the feedback we've received, I know this functionality has been long awaited, and I'm really excited to be announcing its arrival. Here's an overview of what the 2.0 release has to offer:

Access project markups anytime, anywhere

All markups that are created in BIM 360 Glue – in the office or in the field - are stored in the BIM 360 cloud. Upon opening a model, all project model markups are automatically updated and displayed in the Markups panel.

To display any new and updated markups for other project members, pull down and release the Markups panel to refresh [requires network connectivity].

Create markups and communicate with BIM 360 Glue project members

Add new markups or add responses to existing markups with the intuitive Freehand and Text tools. Share your newly created markups with project members in real-time [network connection required].

You can also delete any markups that you have created by swiping the row in the Markups panel to reveal the Delete button.

Offline support

Even offline, you can create, notify and delete markups. Once network connectivity is restored, your work will be automatically synchronized with the BIM 360 cloud.

Receive iPad Notifications for "One-Click to BIM"

In addition to standard email notifications, iPad users will also be able to receive alerts via the iOS Notification Center.

Views and Markups that have been shared by other project members will be delivered to the iPad even when you're not using the app. This will provide "1-click to BIM" functionality, automatically opening the app, loading the relevant model and taking you directly to the shared view or markup.

Incremental zoom

The Markups panel introduces a new 2-finger pinch/spread interaction (as you would zoom in/out of a photo), enabling you to zoom in/out to see more/less information.

Once zoomed in to the Markups panel, you will be able to see longer markup names, along with accessing the latest five responses by author.

Improved support for hidden objects in views and markups

Views and markups created in BIM 360 Glue may contain hidden objects, such as walls and ceilings. These will continue to be hidden when viewed in the mobile app.

If you create a new markup with hidden objects in the Glue mobile app, the precise view will be similarly respected across BIM 360 Glue.

Here are a few useful links to find out more, and importantly, where to get the app:

Are you ready for Autodesk University 2013?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d019aff17b0f1970d2013-08-30T16:41:08+01:002013-08-30T16:41:08+01:00The curtains have been drawn back on Autodesk University 2013, which will take place December 3-5 in Las Vegas. Registration opens September 12, following which you'll be able to choose the classes, hands on labs, and events you want to pack into a very busy few days.Paul Walker

This is a special event for me, as it takes me back to my first AU in 2007 when the Navisworks team had just been acquired by Autodesk, and I was thrust under the spotlight of AU main stage, providing a live demo in front of a 10,000 strong live audience – no pressure. It was terrifying, I don't mind admitting, but the sheer number of people there made me realize what a passionate user community Autodesk has, and their willingness to share their experiences and best practices with other users – which they can in turn pass on to their own colleagues.

Attendees will also be amongst the first to see (and possibly get their hands on) some of the latest and greatest technologies and products being developed by Autodesk and our Partners. This is another highlight for me – engaging with users to discuss current trends and technologies, better understanding industry pains, and exploring potential solutions, which ultimately helps us to prioritize and develop tomorrow's products and services.

Registration opens September 12, following which you'll be able to choose the classes, hands on labs, and events you want to pack into a very busy few days. You can access a preview of the classes on offer this year from the AU Blog, and keep up to date on announcements @AutodeskU.

And if you can't wait that long, why not try AU Online, where you can access many of the classes delivered over previous years on demand.

Autodesk University 2013 is shaping up to be another great conference - hope to see you there!

BIM Workflows Connected with Gluetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d01901c3fd587970b2013-05-16T16:58:38+01:002013-05-16T17:01:21+01:00This week the latest version of BIM 360 Glue was released. In this post, I want to highlight the collaboration BIM 360 Glue can bring to your projects - connecting designers, construction professionals and clients, to facilitate better project outcomes.Paul Walker

This week the latest version of BIM 360 Glue was released; offering a completely redesigned user interface, making it quick and easy for project participants to share, review and coordinate models. In addition to the improved UI, under the hood has also received significant attention, now with Autodesk core technology for BIM viewing and coordination as found in Navisworks. This brings consistency in model viewing across desktop, cloud and mobile solutions from Navisworks to BIM 360 Glue and BIM 360 Field. And with consistent clash technology being used, the same clash test being run in Navisworks and BIM 360 Glue will yield identical results. Another huge advancement in my opinion is the Glue integration with Navisworks – in the previous version you could push Navisworks model up to Glue, but now you can open and append models and merged models directly from Glue too.

In this post, I want to highlight the collaboration BIM 360 Glue can bring to your projects - connecting designers, construction professionals and clients, to facilitate better project outcomes.

Designers

Architectural and Engineering design professionals can upload their models to BIM 360 Glue, making them immediately available for the whole team. With continuous access to the latest model versions, designers are able to perform their own coordination ahead of weekly/bi-weekly review meetings – think of this as "reducing the noise", and making broader team reviews more focused and productive.

Glue add-in applications make it even easier to work with Glue from within authoring applications such as Revit, AutoCAD and Civil 3D. These add-ins enable you to send your models directly to Glue; and when clashes are found with your model, you can open the clash report within your design app and quickly access the clashing element to make the necessary design changes.

The design models can be merged to create federated models, which may initially be carried out by a BIM/VDC Manager - though it doesn't need to be; anyone can create a merged model, combining any combination of individual discipline models – you can think of merged models as being similar to an NWF in Navisworks, a project model referencing individual design models. And merged models will automatically update whenever the design teams update their constituent models. Everyone has immediate access to the latest federated model, without needing to wait for it to be curated and re-published, speeding up the entire coordination and collaboration cycle, and freeing up time for more value add pre-construction activities.

Construction Professionals

As mentioned above, anyone currently using Navisworks, can now access project models from Glue. Thereby ensuring they're working with the latest designs, they can perform advanced project analysis such as 4D simulation and quantification. Their Navisworks project NWF will be referencing the model data in Glue, so whenever they open the NWF it will bring down the latest model versions from Glue. Running Change Analysis in the Navisworks Quantification tool for example, provides an efficient workflow for identifying change between design iterations.

You can additionally append individual discipline models from Glue and create your own federated model in Navisworks, then Glue this back to the cloud server for access by all. Which brings me nicely onto…

Clientsand Extended Team

BIM 360 Glue is exceptionally good at getting everyone on the same page, ensuring everyone is up to date, and sharing the same information. Whether you're a BIM guru or novice; in the office or the field; coordinating models or installing equipment, there's an app to suit your workflows. Clients for example can access the individual disciplines and federated models in the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad. This provides continuous and consistent access to the latest models, providing transparency and ensuring buy-in and engagement from the client throughout the project.

Check out this Case Study from M Moser Associates to learn about how they are using BIM 360 Glue to deliver projects on time and within budget, with improved client engagement throughout the project.

Also visit the BIM 360 Glue website to find out more about the latest release, and try it for yourself with a Free Trial.

BIM 360 Glue mobile update availabletag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d019101a376ae970c2013-04-29T15:30:00+01:002013-04-29T11:54:15+01:00A new version of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad is available now! This latest release offers improved visualization – which looks particularly stunning on the iPad retina screen – and support for the Navisworks 2014 NWD format.Paul Walker

A new version of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad is available now! This latest release offers improved visualization – which looks particularly stunning on the iPad retina screen – and support for the Navisworks 2014 NWD format.

Crisp Graphics

The earlier versions of the Glue mobile app showed slightly jagged edges to model objects, which was accentuated on the high resolution retina displays found on the iPad 3 and 4.

This release displays models at their best; with crisp, clean edges and greater clarity of details – such as the railings in these screenshots.

Navisworks 2014 NWD Support

2014 NWD models can now be transferred directly to the app. Sign in with your Autodesk ID to explore your Navisworks models, access saved views, markup and object properties.

New version of BIM 360 Glue mobile – available now!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d017d4128e63b970c2013-02-20T07:01:48+00:002013-02-19T17:37:27+00:00A new version of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app is now available on the iTunes AppStore!
Providing large-project BIM viewing on the iPad, whether you're a BIM 360 Glue or Navisworks user, you can now benefit from visibility controls (hide and isolate), and enhanced measurement tools. Read on for more details of this exciting release…Paul Walker

It gives me great pleasure to announce to our readers, that a new version of the BIM 360 Glue mobile app is now available on the iTunes AppStore!

Providing large-project BIM viewing on the iPad, whether you're a BIM 360 Glue or Navisworks user, you can now benefit from visibility controls (hide and isolate), and enhanced measurement tools. Read on for more details of this exciting release…

Hide and reveal models and model objects

Visibility controls have been a major focus for this release. Whilst the app is powerful enough to load multi-discipline projects, it's really useful to be able to hide models from individual disciplines; or hide objects such as walls and ceilings to see and inspect the services behind them.

You can additionally isolate objects - making it easier to examine them within context of their surroundings.

And when reviewing the properties of an object, you can now select its parent object, for example the object type, family or category; with hide and isolate applying to the entire selection.

Powerful measurement tools optimized for BIM and field use

The Point-to-Point measure tool has been enhanced to provide a magnifying glass, providing a view of what's under your finger, and therefore making it easier to position your measure points.

An important benefit of using this app in the field is to be able to compare the model with installed components and equipment – planned 'vs' actual. As such, it's not always the point-to-point distance that is required; the vertical and horizontal differences between the points can help inform you whether something has been installed too high/low, or too far from a specific reference point. To provide this additional context, the app will also calculate and display the XYZ differences.

The app is used by a wide range of users, some of which will not necessarily benefit from this feature, so XYZ Differences can be disabled in the App Settings.

Measure shortest distance

The Measure Shortest Distance tool makes it easy to find the direct distance between two objects. If you want to know the width of a corridor for example, to see if you can get a piece of equipment along it, you can select the walls on either side of the corridor and the narrowest point will be identified.

Prioritization of new features is certainly influenced by user feedback, so thank you for the feedback we've received to date, but don't stop now – why not share with us the work site scenarios where you are currently using the app; how you could use the app more effectively if only it did 'x'; or any other ideas, suggestions, or features you'd like to see in future releases.

What Does the Cloud do for Me?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d017d3c98a346970c2012-10-09T15:00:00+01:002012-10-09T13:48:32+01:00If ever there were two technology stacks and engineering teams that were meant to be together, this is them - Autodesk Navisworks and Horizontal Glue come together to deliver the BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad...Paul Walker

In my previous post, BIM 360 Glue On The Go, I mentioned that I assumed product management responsibilities for the BIM 360 Glue mobile app around 10 months ago - that takes us back to Autodesk University 2011. Whilst there I was able to share with a group of construction customers (under a non-disclosure agreement, of course) an early research prototype created by our development team. That prototype was looking to see whether the core Navisworks technology could be leveraged on iOS, and we found that we were able to handle BIM models at least 10-times larger than we had seen before on a mobile device. "This looks promising", said some of those customers. "When can we have it?" asked many others in the room.

Initially we hoped it would be much sooner than 10 months, however in that same week another twist of fate took place - Autodesk acquired Horizontal Systems (with their solution Horizontal Glue being rebranded as Autodesk BIM 360 Glue earlier this year).

If ever there were two technology stacks and engineering teams that were meant to be together, this is them - Navisworks has been well established in the AEC space for over a decade, and fundamentally addresses a key problem of being able to bring together the (often large) design data of BIM projects for coordination on PC's. BIM 360 Glue addresses a similar need, however starting out with a foundation of collaboration, which greatly simplifies the process of gathering models from your design partners, and delivering instant access and simultaneous review capabilities - I'm thrilled that our teams have united over the past 10 months - and what I hope you see in the BIM 360 Glue mobile app is the evolution of Navisworks technology (which maximizes the limited memory and computing power available on mobile devices), unified with the collaborative power of Glue (which makes it easier to access your models and stay current) - if only the branding team would let me get away with calling it SuperGlue... J

If you're still asking what the cloud can do for you, well I think one of the best things the cloud offers is, facilitating a connected experience – connecting people to their data; and connecting people to people, thereby improving collaboration. The first release of the BIM 360 Glue app provides a means of connecting the mobile user to their latest-version models in Glue, which may be individual design models from Revit, etc. or merged models aggregated within Glue, or models aggregated in Navisworks and uploaded to Glue. From a collaboration perspective, if you're using the BIM 360 Glue web client, then as part of your review process you can send notifications to other users of let's say, a specific area of interest in the model. Upon receiving this notification, it will include a unique URL, and if you follow this link from your iPad mail client it will take you directly to the mobile app, automatically open the relevant model and take you to the exact area of interest. "One-click to BIM" (or technically with a touch interface, one-tap to BIM, but that doesn't sound so snappy).

This is what should be the start of many collaborative workflows we'll deliver across Autodesk and the BIM 360 solution. These will not only better link the design teams into pre-construction workflows, but also extends into the construction phase through BIM 360 Field, for Field Management, Commissioning and Handover (delivered through another recent acquisition of Vela Systems). It's clear that mobile capabilities will be an important means of project participants capturing data anytime and anywhere, and making that available to the rest of the team. This will help to reduce a lot of the wasted time (and resource) seen in construction today, through delays in getting information to the right people, and getting the right people together (when often not co-located) so that they can make informed decisions.

BIM 360 Glue On The Gotag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a014e87fbd82d970d017d3c92e908970c2012-10-08T16:00:00+01:002012-10-08T13:31:37+01:00Accessing models and BIM project data in the field has been a high priority for our construction customers for some time now, and requested more times than I can remember. Well, the wait is over...Paul Walker

Accessing models and BIM project data in the field has been a high priority for our construction customers for some time now, and requested more times than I can remember. Around 10 months ago I was asked to product manage a team to build an app that could handle large BIM datasets - to say I was thrilled (and honored) is an understatement, as although I've worked on Navisworks for many years, this was the first product I'd be the lead for. No pressure.

The opportunity here was not only to make BIM project data available to construction professionals whilst they're on the go, but to make these models accessible to a wider [new] audience, including those on-site, who may have never seen a model let alone used a desktop BIM app like Revit or Navisworks. So with this in mind, we set some clear design goals of what the first release of the App needed to achieve, including:

Quick and easy access to [large] models

Easy-to-use navigation, using the richness of touch-screen interaction

Quick and easy access to BIM object data

Useable both online and offline

We were also keen for the App to be easy to learn, so we wanted to use gestures that are common in other standard Apps, such as two-finger pinch and drag to zoom and pan which you'd do with the iPad Photos App, for example. We wanted navigation to be appropriate for BIM, such as keeping the camera upright as you orbit around, and being able to walk; whilst also being compelling to use, like playing a game, something that you'd want to keep using and learn to master.

Well, the wait is over. It's my pleasure to announce the launch of the Autodesk BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad!

Here are the key features of this first release:

Easy access to up-to-date, multi-discipline BIM 360 Glue projects

"One-click to BIM" access from email notifications to a precise model view

Now I recognize this is just the start, and I hope you do too. We already have a huge backlog of enhancements, and I expect you're going to be crying out for more features - and believe me we want to give them to you, but as I'm sure you'll appreciate these can take time to research, design, develop, test and validate - so as the saying goes, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating", and it feels like it's time to get the App into your hands and gather feedback as we plan for future releases. So here's what I'd like you to do: